My sister had SP2 sneak into her machine on an auto update and now it won't boot up.

It's running in a boot up loop that won't stop. She tried a number of things; a boot disk, a few 'computer guys' that tried everything they could, and finally had tech support on the phone for an hour and all they could come up with after exhasutive attempts, was a fresh install. After that she got on the phone with Microsoft, I have no idea how they couldn't help get it running but they also came up with a fresh install as the answer.

Unfortunately she just saved very important pics from her job that morning and she really needs them so she didn't want to try that.

My boss had the same thing happen after SP2 got into our shop computer last year, and somehow I was able to stop it and get it running again. But I really don't remember what I did, I know I didn't use a boot disk, it was something in the boot screen where I was able to stop the loop and make a few choices that ultimately got it running. It took me a little while though because I'm not very knowledgable.


I would be very grateful if someone could help us get the computer going again.

Thank you.

I'll have to check back later, off to work.

Quoted: Unfortunately she just saved very important pics from her job that morning and she really needs them so she didn't want to try that.

If you have some Linux skillz, you can boot with a Knoppix cd, mount the harddrive and do a backup of the pics to another drive, floppy, usb stick, external hd etc.

Quoted: Quoted: Unfortunately she just saved very important pics from her job that morning and she really needs them so she didn't want to try that. If you have some Linux skillz, you can boot with a Knoppix cd, mount the harddrive and do a backup of the pics to another drive, floppy, usb stick, external hd etc.

+1  i use knoppix daily.    
   get her stuff backed up and do a fresh install.   it will save you alot of head ache

you might try booting of the xp cd to the recovery console and doing a checkdisk  /r  

just uninstall it.

MLW>"<

boot in safe mode


or take drive , put in another PC, copy all the stuff she needs, then start over.

Quoted: just uninstall it. MLW>"<

can you show me the steps for that

Quoted: Quoted: just uninstall it. MLW>"< can you show me the steps for that

if its the same windows service pack that auto loaded on mine, go to add/remove programs and find windows service pack 2 and hit the remove button, took bout thirty minutes for it to uninstall and for the comp to restart.

MLW>"<

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: just uninstall it. MLW>"< can you show me the steps for that if its the same windows service pack that auto loaded on mine, go to add/remove programs and find windows service pack 2 and hit the remove button, took bout thirty minutes for it to uninstall and for the comp to restart. MLW>"<

the computer won't boot into windows

Just got back from work, I really appreciate the help. Looks like Knoppix is out, but thank you for the suggestion. I just started to get into Linux when my HDD failed so my skills are weak in that department.

I'll have to go there and pull the drive out as suggested. One question though, do I take that hard drive and make it a slave in my computer and then extract the files she needs for work?

Thanks again.

If it's IDE then either set the jumper to the "Slave" setting (check for a label on the drive that defines the jumpers) or set it to cable select and put it on the right end of the cable.

Yes set it to slave.

What I think you were looking for is boot to last known good configuration. I think you can f8 the machine on boot up and get that menu.
If that doesn't work, when you get a chance try to boot it in another machine and see if it will boot up. If her computer is around 4 or 5 years old, there was a bad batch of capacitors that got sent out, and it causes machines to just continuously reboot. Could be just a coincidence that it didn't boot up after the service pack install.

Thank you very much, I'll give it a try this weekend. Once I get the important files off the HDD then I'll do a clean install with SP2 update immediately following.

for the reinstall, do a slipstream cd
won't take all that much longer to make the cd, then if you ever have to reinstall again it'll save you from having to download SP2
www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp

Quoted: for the reinstall, do a slipstream cd won't take all that much longer to make the cd, then if you ever have to reinstall again it'll save you from having to download SP2 www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp

i use Norton Ghost
Same principle, different software.

Quoted: My sister had SP2 sneak into her machine on an auto update and now it won't boot up. It's running in a boot up loop that won't stop. She tried a number of things; a boot disk, a few 'computer guys' that tried everything they could, and finally had tech support on the phone for an hour and all they could come up with after exhasutive attempts, was a fresh install. After that she got on the phone with Microsoft, I have no idea how they couldn't help get it running but they also came up with a fresh install as the answer. Unfortunately she just saved very important pics from her job that morning and she really needs them so she didn't want to try that. My boss had the same thing happen after SP2 got into our shop computer last year, and somehow I was able to stop it and get it running again. But I really don't remember what I did, I know I didn't use a boot disk, it was something in the boot screen where I was able to stop the loop and make a few choices that ultimately got it running. It took me a little while though because I'm not very knowledgable. I would be very grateful if someone could help us get the computer going again. Thank you. I'll have to check back later, off to work.

If Windoze is stuck in a boot loop, then the file system is most likely still intact. The simplest thing to do is yank the hard drive and put it in another machine, then copy the pictures and other important information off that hard drive.

Takes time and effort, but its a pretty easy one to perform.